20 December 1942, returning from mission #7 to Romilly-sur-Seine in badly damaged B-17F 41-24582 The '8' Ball (359BS) BN-O flying as a Squadron Lead Crew. Capt Calhoun flew over the target twice and his Squadron formation came off the target 10 miles behind the rest of the formation. Enemy fighters found the squadron formation and made head-on attacks. When the fighters came head-one Capt Calhoun dove down. One B-17, piloted by 1Lt O.S. Witt, was forced to ditch in the English channel all ten crewmen were killed. The enemy fighters made their last pass half way across the English Channel. The '8' Ball's main spar was hit and two engines were out.. The hydraulic system was out and the B-17 was shaking violently. Capt Calhoun ordered his crew, with the exception of himself and Major Romig (CP) to bail-out as soon as the B-17 reached the coast of England. They all made successful parachute jumps. Capt Calhoun and Major Romig then made a successful wheels-up "Belly" landing at Bovingdon and the B-17 was later salvaged. The Eight Ball was stripped of her nose cone, a scarce item in those days, Capt Ross C. Bales, a 359th BS Pilot, asked the 444th sub depot (then the 328th Service Squadron) to undertake the job of designing a gun mount to fire forward through the nose cone. The completed first nose cone was installed on 427th BS B-17F 41-24610 Jose Btfsplk II and was a tremendous success and helped lead
to the B-17 chin turret that first appeared in the 8th AF B-17s in October 1943.

04 May 1943, mission 33, to Antwerp, Belgium in The '8" Ball Mk II. Capt Calhoun (P)
and LtCol W. A. Hatcher, Commanding Officer 351st BG(H), flying as CoPilot, were accompanied
by Capt Clark Gable who flew as an Observer and manned the radio room gun. Enemy fighters slightly damaged the "8" Ball Mk II. Capt Gable and his cameraman chose to begin combat filming on his VIII Air Force combat gunnery training motion picture with a seasoned B-17 group - the 303rd BG(H). He would finish filming with the 351st BG(H) when it finished it's theater indoctrination and entered combat. The finished combat film was used as the core of the motion picture "Combat America."

11 January 1944, mission 98, to Oschersleben, Germany in the '8' Ball Mk II. B/Gen Robert Travis was flying with LtCol Calhoun as Air Commander and CoPilot leading the entire first Division. The flight was fairly routine until General Travis told LtCol Calhoun that the 2nd and 3rd Division aircraft were returning to England due to deteriorating weather. He said that because things
were going smoothly and his 1st Division was well along, he ordered the 1st Division to proceed to bomb the target - a FW-190 assembly factory. He later claimed that he did not hear the mission
recall order. The P-47 escort obeyed the recall order and returned to their bases in England. The bomb run was excellent. As soon as the P-47s left the 1st Division was attacked by German fighters in groups of 15 to 30 aircraft 303rd BG(H) gunners claimed 30 fighters destroyed, 4 probables and 9 damaged - the greatest number of claims on any of the 303rd missions. Eleven 303rd B-17s were shot down. Other Groups lost 31 B-17s. LtCol Calhoun described the mission as "The roughest he had been on - but it was worth it." Many of the crewmen on the mission, who lost many of their friends, disagreed with this assessment and thought that the price in lost B-17s and crews was too costly.